Day Five: Playing at Silver Dollar City

Today was the first day the band was scheduled to play at Silver Dollar City. We learned sad news this morning, Ed's mother died last night. This is the first time the band has played (to my knowledge) without our fiddler. The services for his mom will be next Monday.


It rained lightly off and on all day today and it was a bit chilly, making for a very light crowd. The kids thought that was great, as it meant that absolutely no one else was riding the rides. It was strange to see the roller coasters running with no passengers at all. Rayna, who DELIGHTS in wild rides, was thrilled today when she was allowed to ride on Thunderation (an adult roller coaster). Technically, I think she is about an inch too short, still...but she wanted so badly to go on it and I didn't feel compelled to ASK the roller coaster attendent to measure her...I was relieved that they glanced at her size and decided she was close enough. For her part, Rayna was IN HER ELEMENT as the roller coaster swerved down the dips and around the turns. Doug (to my surprise) went with us on Thunderation again today (after telling his Dad Sunday that he didn't like that ride). Maybe he had momentarily forgotten the terror of it? He REMEMBERED, though, just as the coaster began rolling away from the boarding area and asked me a bit late if he could get off! The pitiful photo of his scared face was taken on the ride (contrast this with the huge grins his little sister was wearing as she rode just behind him!). When the ride ended, he couldn't get off fast enough...but, RAYNA begged and begged to stay on. So, stay on she did and Grant's cousin Jean took her on a second go round. When the coaster again returned, she BEGGED and pleaded to stay on for a third time, but we made her climb off.

A bit later in the day, Darcy and Jean went on Wildfire (a coaster that flips upside down FIVE times). Rayna had her heart set on going, but as we came to the entrance I could see that DARCY was just barely tall enough to be allowed on the ride. Rayna wasn't even HALF tall enough. I explained to her that she wasn't big enough yet and she was utterly devastated. Huge tears ran down her cheeks as we stood on the observation deck watching Darcy flip upside down over and over again as the coaster careened up and down the track. Rayna kept sobbing, "but I WANT to go, Mom!" It is tough always being the smallest one.

Just found a Great Advice Column....

Hey, just had to take a quick break from the vacation traveloging to let everyone know about a really great new advice columnist that I recently ran across. Click here to see the first article in what promises to be a long and illustrious series.

Day Four: Quote for the Day...

Well, we had barely finished breakfast before I heard my quote for the day! We were standing in line at Peppercorns to pay for the all you can eat breakfast buffet we had just finished eating. Rayna spyed the candy-bar display beneath the cash register and chirped up in a famished four year old voice, "Can I have a snack?"

That has to be one of the mysteries of childhood...the ability to walk out of an all you can eat buffet and be famished moments later!

After leaving Peppercorns, we took our starving daughter and our other two children window shopping. We found out that the Grand Village Shops are no longer owned by Silver Dollar City (good-bye 30% discount that was always so nice to have!). It was the most beautiful day since our arrival...warmer and such bright, utterly cloudless skies! After a bit of shopping, we played a round of miniature golf. Grant and I had fun remembering back to the time we played miniature golf down here three years ago when not quite two year old Rayna was in desperate need of sleep...rather than being grouchy she was just plain giddy...trembling all over as she raced in manic little circles. She was like an overwound toy about to spring apart. It was such a strange site...and one we have never since witnessed from our daughter. Today, she was older and better rested, so we didn't get that funny visual during our game this year...but, I guess we will never be able to play miniature golf with Rayna without remembering back to that evening when she was so tiny and so giddily, joyfully frantic. Today we took the video camera along...so in years to come we will be able to chuckle over today's footage. Darcy made more hole in one's than anyone else. Doug and Rayna kept holding their clubs backwards and playing something that looked more like hockey than miniature golf!

This afternoon, we took a long nap at the hotel. Well, Grant, Rayna, and I did. Darcy blogged. Doug watched old Gunsmoke re-runs. Ahhh...vacations are wonderful!

A few snapshots from our day (including our hike in Henning State Park and a bit of the view from the old lookout tower there)...

Day Three: Continued...

We have packed a LOT into the last couple of days, yet our vacation has still had a laid-back, unscheduled feel to it. The evening we arrived, we went to the Shepherd of the Hills outdoor play and followed it up with treats at Cakes and Cream Dessert Parlor, then, yesterday, we began our morning at Docker's breakfast buffet, then went to Silver Dollar City, then had Chinese food, did some site seeing and toured through the Titanic museum and munched on fudge and carmel apples before we went to the IMAX Theater to see "A Night With the King".

Today Grant let me sleep in (until 8:30 or so!) and we were slow enough getting around that we didn't make it to breakfast. We had an early lunch at a Mexican restaurant, after discovering to our dismay that one of our favorite haunts, "Fall Creek Steak House" has burned down and no longer exists. (Rudy the roll thrower is now at Peppercorn's.) Another sad discovery this week was that Uncle Joe's Barbecue is now a Tex-Mex place. (Nothing against Tex-Mex...it is just that we LOVED the brisket at Uncle Joe's and Grant has eaten there almost every year since he was seventeen years old (he's forty-four now).) A few years ago, Mesquite Charlie's Steak House had a fire and closed down. This year the building is in use again and is called "Majestic Steak"...it sure doesn't have the look or feel of the old Mesquite Charlie's. I doubt we will eat there ever.


After lunch, we checked out a bookstore sale. The kids each got a couple of books and I picked up a novel inspired by a true-life incident...an adoptive mother who is told that by the Chinese government that she must relinquish the baby daughter she has already adopted...she makes a run for it with her new daughter and her nine year old stepson through the interior of China, trying to reach the Embassy in ShangHai. I haven't read far enough into it to know if it will "grab" me or not, but it was only five dollars for this hard-back (the store is going out of business) and the scenario sounded interesting, so I figured it was worth getting. Having been on two adoption trips to China already, I'm always drawn to the adoption stories of others...even those of fictious characters! After that, we came back to the hotel and Darcy sat out in the van, basting in the beautiful sunlight while she read one of her new books and Grant took the two little ones over to play in the park next to our hotel, while I napped for an hour in the hotel room. Then we went to the New ShangHai Circus to watch the Chinese acrobats perform. We always enjoy this show SO MUCH! We have seen it every year for the last nine years. Each year the show is different. This year, all the performers were different too. It was a different troupe. The M.C. said that they bring in a different troupe almost every year. Grant and I recognized several of the performers a number of years in a row in the past, though...but, none of them were there this year. This troupe seemed to have more performers who were pretty young and less men than there has been in the last few years. The show was really excellent--as always!


We had great seats...second row from the front. Doug was so mesmerized by the action up on the stage that, at one point, he fell out of his chair! I had fun looking over at Darcy several times during the show and seeing her utterly transfixed. But, the highest compliment of all to the show was seen in Rayna's reaction... During intermission, I took her to the restroom. While we were there, Rayna remarked, "Do you remember when I was a little Chinese girl, Mommy?" Laughing, I said, "Honey, you STILL ARE a little Chinese girl. You will ALWAYS be a Chinese girl!" Pleased to hear that she was STILL Chinese, a big smile spread across her face. She thought a moment and then commented, "But you aren't a Chinese girl, are you Mom?" "No," I replied, "I'm not Chinese." Rayna looked at me sympathetically and observed, "You are just a plain girl, aren't you, Mommy?"

A few minutes later, we were back in our seats waiting for the show to resume. Before I realized what was happening, our littlest had begun practicing her OWN new act. To the delight of the people in the row behind us, she was trying her own hand at balancing herself upon the arms of the chair and bending her head backwards over the seat as though she was going to pluck a rose with her teeth as the young Chinese woman had done (albeit from a precarious ten foot high stack of chairs) earlier in the show.


Today, Rayna was so very proud to be a little Chinese girl. It reminded me of a time seven years ago when Darcy was first discovering pride in her Chinese heritage. Then four year old Darcy had just begun attending Chinese language school on the weekends (a large school run by first generation Chinese-American families to teach their own children to read and write in Chinese). For the first time in her young life, she had found a place where EVERYONE (adults and children, alike) looked just like her...a place where she wasn't the unique one, but just one of the crowd. When you don't even match your own family, that is HUGE. I knew this experience had impacted her, but one day a few weeks later, in Walmart, I saw just how much it had impacted her. Darcy always loved shopping and trying on outfits, so, it didn't surprise me when she caught sight of a long red dress and oohhed and aahhed over it and begged me to let her try it on. I told her, "Okay, you can try it on but we are NOT buying any dresses today." I was adamant that I would NOT be persuaded to make any unplanned purchases this particular day. Darcy understood. She was just happy that I was going to let her try it on. Into the dressing room we went. Darcy very carefully donned the red and black, oriental styled dress. Her dark eyes widened as she gazed at herself in the mirror, and then she whispered in shocked awe, " OhMom! This dress makes me look...CHINESE!" Of course we bought the dress!

Day Three: Where to Go for the DETAILS!

Wow! I just got back from looking at Darcy's blog for the first time since we went on vacation. She has been putting a LOT more details in her posts than I have! It takes me so long to get the pictures uploaded that I want to share, that wind up not having time to WRITE much about them! So....if you want to know what all we have been doing down here the last few days, you really should click here to go to Darcy's blog and read her last three or four entries!

Day Two: Embarrassment Right off the Bat

There are some conversations you should never have in front of your four year old. Let me cite an example. This morning, I instructed my eleven year old to put her laptop computer back into her backpack out of sight, rather than leaving it out on the table in full view right next to the motel door. She asked why she had to put her computer up. I replied, "When the maid comes to clean our room, she will leave the door open and anyone passing by would be able to see your computer and could even reach through the door and grab it while the maid's back was turned."

Innocent enough conversation...except that it was held within hearing of a four year old. Later this morning when we returned from breakfast at Dockers, we saw that the maid was cleaning the room right next to ours (with the door wide open, of course). As we walked over to our room, Grant and I were speculating whether she had already cleaned our room, or if our room was next on her list. Grant opened the door and I remarked happily, "Perfect timing! We were only gone a bit and here she got in and cleaned our room already!" Rayna, just passing the open doorway next door to us, happily piped up in her always very loud voice, "And even she didn't STEAL anything!"

Breakfast at Dockers was EXCELLENT (as always!) this morning! There was a HUGE crowd waiting in line as we left (nine tenths of the line is INSIDE the building), so, we timed our arrival just right (we didn't have to wait more than a minute or two). The grimaces on everyone's faces isn't out of annoyance, but, rather the shock of the BRIGHT sunlight as we came back outside. It is so GOOD to see the SUN again after so many gray, dark days. It is a gorgeous day out there today. A bit chilly, but so wonderfully BRIGHT!



Here is a larger view of the on the spot portrait made of our family as we were entering the "Shepherd of the Hills" play last night.


(Well, I will add to this post later tonight...so check back down here at the bottom of this post later so you get the full story! We are off to Silver Dollar City, now! Bye!!!)

(Oh...and my quote for the day? No, it isn't, "and even she didn't steal anything!" Rather it was something from my husband's lips that tickled me. I had forgotten to give Doug his Ritalin before we left the motel room this morning, so he was a bit frenzied all through breakfast. Coming back to the motel, he kept up a nonstop stream of questions from the backseat in speech more garbled than usual. What made it so frustrating was that it was the same insistant questions over and over again, oblivious to the answers offered. Finally, Grant stared into the rearview mirror and intoned, "Doug, no more speaking until you have had your pill!" Maybe I am still a bit goofy from being up late last night, but that edict just struck me as hilarious! I think there are a lot of people in this world who shouldn't speak anymore until they have had their pill!)






(The very first ride Doug, Darcy, and I went on today was a large roller coaster called "Thunderation". Doug looked terrified through the entire ride and declared when we got off that he didn't want to go on THAT one, any more (though he has since changed his mind)! The photo below is of him telling his dad about the ride!)

(The phone here beside Rayna and I brings back such wonderful memories to me. Grant's band was playing at Silver Dollar City near this very spot four years ago when our social worker called us on my mother's cell phone to tell us she had just received the referral for our daughter (Xi Chun Fang...Rayna!)from China. We had waited almost TWO YEARS to finally hear those words! I could hardly dial the phone, I was so excited, as I made call after call to friends and family members from this very phone to share the exciting news with them!)